Whether you have just purchased an Apple device or are an experienced user of Apple products, the operating systems that drive the technology hide many secrets that aren’t initially obvious. Many are buried within the System Settings/ Settings apps on your Mac and iPhone/iPad, often in places you wouldn’t expect – which is certainly the case with the recent macOS Ventura update – so it’s always good to familiarise yourself with the various options available and turn them on if they can enhance the way you use and interact with your devices.

Here we have compiled the 100 most essential settings for Mac and iOS that you need to turn on/off straight away – the first 50 are Mac-specific running macOS 13 (Ventura), and the second 50 are iPhone-specific running iOS 16. We should also point out that we have tried to avoid repeating settings across Mac and iOS, so the iCloud settings, for example, that we highlight on Mac should also be activated on your iPhone.

Siri & Spotlight settings you need to change

Remember, you can do pretty much anything on your Mac by asking Siri, your digital personal assistant. But if you prefer a more hands-on approach to, say, finding a file, then your Mac’s built-in search facility, Spotlight, can be as thorough as you want.

01 Read Siri responses

Click on ‘Siri Responses’ and enable the ‘Always show Siri captions’ option. This will show what Siri says onscreen, so you’ll never be in two minds as to what Siri’s response was. You can also turn on ‘Always show speech’ to check that Siri is interpreting your speech correctly.

02 Turn on “Hey Siri”

Go to System Settings>Siri & Spotlight and ‘Ask Siri’ should be turned on by default. Activate the ‘Listen for “Hey Siri”’ button and you will be able to set up your digital personal assistant to react to your voice. This can be useful for getting things done quickly by saying “Hey Siri” followed by a command.

03 Speed up Spotlight

To make your Mac’s Spotlight search more streamlined and effective, scroll down through the ‘Search results’ section and untick any categories you don’t want Spotlight to scrutinise as you enter your search criteria. This will make Spotlight quicker at finding exactly what you want to see in the listed results.

04 Change Siri’s voice

Click ‘Select’ next to the ‘Siri voice’ option and you will be able to choose different voices from different regions, such as American, Australian, British, Indian, Irish and South African. Click on one to hear an example, then select it and click ‘Done’ to save it for future use.

05 Type Siri questions

If you’re self-conscious about issuing commands to Siri verbally, go to System Settings>Accessibility>Siri and then enable the ‘Type to Siri’ option. Now, when you click on the Siri icon in your menu bar, a text window will appear into which you can type your commands instead of speaking them.

06 Turn on the firew

On your Mac, go to System Settings> Network>Firewall and turn it on. The firewall prevents unauthorised applications, programs and services from accepting incoming connections. You can click on ‘Options’ to go deeper and apply specific settings, including adding the apps you wish to allow through the firewall.

07 Activate Handoff

Go to System Settings> General>AirDrop & Handoff and turn on the ‘Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices’ button. Now, if you’re reading a web page on your iPhone, for example, you can continue reading on your Mac by clicking the Safari icon in your Mac Dock with the iPhone icon.

08 Change your Mac pointer

In Settings>Accessibility> Display, enable the ‘Shake mouse pointer to locate’ option to make your pointer temporarily bigger when you quickly move it, to make it easier to spot. You can also click on the ‘Pointer outline colour’ and ‘Pointer fill colour’ boxes to change the colours of your pointer to make it stand out more on your desktop.

09 Unlock the Pin iTunes Store

There are numerous settings to change in the Music app. Go to Music>Settings>General and then, in the Show section, tick the iTunes Store option. The iTunes Store will then be unlocked in your Music app sidebar – click on it to browse the store for songs, ringtones, etc to purchase.

10 Pin your shortcuts

If there are shortcuts that you use from the Shortcuts app regularly, then why not make them accessible from your Mac menu bar? Double-click on a shortcut in the Gallery to view the components, then click on the ‘i’ icon in the top right and choose ‘Pin in Menu Bar’. A new menu will be created.

11 Set default browser

If you prefer using another web browser to Safari, such as Chrome, then launch Chrome, go to Chrome>Settings and make it your default browser. Now, whenever you click on a weblink, it will open in Chrome instead of Safari. This also applies to alternative email apps too.

12 Change Finder settings

It’s easy to forget that Finder has its own settings to configure. Click on your desktop and then go to Finder>Settings and you can determine what a new Finder window shows, what locations are displayed in the window sidebar (such as iCloud Drive), and tweak many other settings to your preferences.